Friends: The Reunion that released last week on May 27 has taken the Friends’ fan by storm. A special episode directed by Ben Winston to honor the 25th Anniversary of the iconic American sitcom. The special episode had the original cast members of Friends- David Schwimmer (Ross), Mathew Perry (Chandler), Courtney Cox (Monica), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Matt LeBlanc (Joey), and Jennifer Aniston (Rachel) reunite on the set after 17 years, since the last Friends episode aired on 2004.
Friends Reunion was a hit in China too. It received a rating of 9.5 out of 10 on its popular review site Douban however, China’s streaming service has censored several scenes of the special including Lady Gaga, BTS & Justin Bieber scenes. China is known for banning quite many things like Chloé Zhao’s Oscar acceptance in Academy Award 2021 ceremony.
China Censored Lady Gaga, BTS & Justin Bieber On Their Video Platforms
The primary reason for censoring Lady Gaga’s scene is that Lady Gaga has been prohibited in China since she met with the Dalai Lama in 2016. The missing clip from the special was Lady Gaga’s duet with Lisa Kudrow on “Smelly Cat”.
The portion of BTS lead RM praising the cast and sharing how it helped him to learn English and the group expressing their love for the show. It was deleted because the Korean pop band had earlier talked about the sacrifices of South Korean and US soldiers during the Korean War & neglected to mention the sacrifice of China’s troops(who fought on the side of North Korea). BTS is not well received there since then.
Justin Bieber is already banned in China since 2014 after he posted a photo from the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, that honors Japan’s dead war heroes. The government has been annoyed it involves the war criminals from World War II too.
Friends: The Reunion is streaming on HBO Max in the US & Zee5 in India.
